Nor did the city missionary whom she had called in to attend Mrs. Bute’s funeral illumine the Jocelyn problem for the good woman.  He was an excellent man, but lamentably deficient in tact, being prone to exhort on the subject of religion in season, and especially out of season, and in much the same way on all occasions.  Since the funeral he had called two or three times, and had mildly and rather vaguely harangued Mrs. Jocelyn and Mildred.  Instead of echoing his pious platitudes with murmurs of assent and approval, they had been very polite, and also very reticent and distant; and Mr. Woolling—­that was his name—­had said in confidence to Mrs. Wheaton that “they might be good people, but he fearing they were not yet altogether ‘in the light.’  They seemed a little cold toward the good cause, and were not inclined to talk freely of their spiritual experiences and relations.  Probably it was because they were not altogether orthodox in their views.”

It would seem that this worthy person had taken literally the promise of his Master, “I will make you fishers of men.” for he was quite content to be a fisher.  Let us hope that occasionally, as by a miracle, his lenient Master enabled him to catch some well-disposed sinner; but as a rule his mannerism, his set phrases, his utter lack of magnetism and appreciation of the various shades of character with which he was dealing, repelled even those who respected his motive and mission.  Sensitive, sad-hearted women like Mrs. Jocelyn and Mildred could no more open their hearts to him than to a benevolent and impersonal board of trustees sitting around a green baize table.  That detestable class, however, who thrive on opening their hearts and dilating on their spiritual experiences, could talk to him, as he would say, in a “most edifying and godly manner,” and through him, in consequence, reap all the pecuniary advantages within his power to bestow.

It is not the blatant and plausible poor who suffer, but those who hide their poverty and will starve rather than trade on their faith; and too often Christian and charitable organizations prove they are not the “children of this world” by employing agents so lacking in fitness for the work that a commercial firm, following a like policy, would soon compass its own failure.  The Church deserves slight progress if it fails to send its best and most gifted men and women among the poor and vicious.  Mr. Woolling was a sincere well-meaning man, but he no more knew how to catch men with a Christ-like magnetism and guile than how to render one of Beethoven’s symphonies; and he was so constituted that he could never learn.  It was an open question whether he did not do more harm than good; and those who employed him might and ought to have known the fact.